ZBrushCentral

Masking and exporting masks as black and white images...

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

There are some very useful masking features in zbrush. Mask by cavity or height for example. These masks would be very useful to have in a texture painting program. Is there a way to take the mask you’ve applied to your model and export it as a black and white map that can be used as mask in texture painting programs (mari, photoshop, etc)?

Also, is there any way to make a layer, do some sculpting on that layer, and then just apply a mask to the new geometry that you’ve added? In other words, mask just the detail that is contained within that layer?

Please advise.
Thanks!!

#2

Is there a way to take the mask you’ve applied to your model and export it as a black and white map

Tool > Texture Map > Create > New From Masking

is there any way to make a layer, do some sculpting on that layer, and then just apply a mask to the new geometry that you’ve added?

I don’t think so.

#3

Your model must have UVs assigned and then you can use the Tool>Masking>Create Alpha button to create an alpha of the masking in the Alpha palette, from where you can export it.

There’s no direct way that I can think of masking sculpting done on a Layer. One way would be to paint with a single colour (such as red) at the same time as sculpting. You’d then be able to use the Mask By Color>Mask By Intensity to create a mask.

#4

@zber2 - Whoa!!! That new from masking just blew my mind!! Amazing!!! Thanks!!

@marcus_civis - Oh that’s a good idea about painting with the color. There are so many ways to do things in zbrush it gets overwhelming sometimes. Thanks!

#5

no problem :+1:

Like Marcus said though, you need good UV’s first. UV Master does a quick and easy job.

#6

I’ve got really good UVs. Here’s the problem now though. I’ve got my model spread over 5 UV tiles. When I click the “New from masking” button it takes the masks for all tiles and combines them on top of each other in one image. Is there a way to get it to take the mask for each tile and have it create a separate image for each? Sorry if this is a newb question. I’m a newb.

#7

What you might try is, after you import your mesh, go to “Tool > Polygroups” and click “Uv Groups” button (see image below). Then you can go to “Tool > SubTool > Split” and click “Groups Split” button which should split each uv tile portion of the mesh into a seperate SubTool. You can then assign a different texture to each SubTool. I have never done this before, so I am not 100% sure if ZBrush will retain the UV maps after the mesh is split. Just try it and see if it works. If need be, you can use UV Master on each SubTool.

uv groups-1.png

#8

Nice! I’ll give that a shot. The model is all finished and UVd and textures are even done so re-uving is pretty much out of the question, but like you said hopefully it will retain the uvs I have set already.

Thanks!

#9

You shouldn’t need to split the model into separate subtools. Once you have a different group for each UV tile, turn on Polyframes (Shift+F) and then Shift+Ctrl+click on a group. This will hide all the other groups and pressing Texture Map>New from Masking will give a map based on just the single UV tile.

#10

Thanks Marcus! :+1:small_orange_diamond:)